Around the World

A Nazi Jumbo!

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

OK, OK, I put the mustache in. I couldn’t resist.

In Great Britain, the enlightened isle that has never quite embraced the  concepts of “freedom of speech” and “freedom of association,” is putting four neo-Nazis in  jail for being “active members” of the banned  group National Action (NA).

Alice Cutter and her former partner Mark Jones, along with Garry Jack and Connor Scothern, appeared at Birmingham crown court, where they were convicted of being members of the group. NA was banned in December 2016 after a series of rallies and incidents that included praising the murder of the MP Jo Cox.  Not killing her, mind you. Praising her murder.

Cutter denied that she was an active member of the group as the prosecutor had argued to the court. True,  Jurors were shown messages in which she joked about gassing synagogues and using a Jew’s head as a football.  Joke! She was joking! But I’d say where she really ran into trouble denying that she was a Neo-Nazi was the fact that she competed in the “Miss Hitler” beauty pageant. Cutter entered the  pageant under the catchy name “Buchenwald Princess.”

Führer ? What Führer ?

Sunday Ethics Warm-Up, 6/7/2020: Let’s Play “Name The Breached Ethics Values”!

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Awash with shame for forgetting D-Day yesterday…

I don’t know about you, but for me the days merge into each other of late. I didn’t realize that I had snubbed D-Day until almost midnight. My Dad used to remind me that my existence may have been due to his unexpected inability to participate in the invasion: he had been assigned as an observer, which sounded scary to me, but “luckily” the idiot who blew himself and my dad’s foot up with a live hand grenade took him off the beaches.

1. I wonder...are the same PR hacks who wrote all of the “we’re all in this together? messages about the Wuhan lockdown the ones responsible for the smarmy “black lives matter” messages various companies are putting out?

Yesterday I was watching a movie on Vice, and the CEO kept interrupting the film to blather on about social justice. He is going to host a special, and among the guests—Trayvon Martin’s mother! That tells me all I need to know about the program. Outside of the false narrative constructed around it, the Zimmerman-Martin affair holds no enlightenment about systemic racism, police, or anything else useful, other than being a fine example of how the news media and politicians exploit race whenever they can.

The ethical values breached are honesty, responsibility, and citizenship.

2. Ann Althouse posted this sign from her neighborhood (Madison, Wisconsin).

Yeah, that attitude will really assist the battle against “systemic racism.” Nothing builds racial trust like one race telling the other that there are some opinions it can’t express because of their race.

These are the people that the NFL, Uber, BestBuy and so many other businesses and institutions are supporting.

The ethical value being ignored are trust and integrity. Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 6/3/2020: Rationalizations #1 And #64

/ Jack Marshall / 75 Comments

Well, maybe the Nicholas Brothers will cheer me up….

I wrote about Fayard and Harold here. Talk about victims of systemic racism: the only reason these guys aren’t as famous as Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly is that Hollywood wouldn’t let them be. Justice would be making sure every single American kid sees this routine before they are 18.

1. Of course rioting is domestic terrorism. What else would you call it? It’s calculated violence against innocent citizens to promote fear and to advance a political objective. That’s terrorism.

If the truth hurts, tough. Boy, Rationalization #64. Yoo’s Rationalization or “It isn’t what it is” has had a work-out this year!

2. New York Times priorities: Here’s the top front page headline in the Times today: “How Trump’s Idea For Photo Op led To Havoc in the Park.”  Riots, looting, attacks on police and deaths from the George Floyd riots, and that’s the story the Times believes should be first today. Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Saturday Morning Ethics, 5/30/2020: Burn, Baby, Burn Nostalgia”

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

Belfast, Minneapolis…whatever.

Steve-O-in NJ has authored another of his periodic epics, this time in response to the George Floyd-triggered civil unrest, finding an analogy in the long, ugly history of civil upheaval in Northern Ireland. For once, I’m going to show some restraint and let a Comment of the Day speak entirely for itself.

Here is Steve-O-in NJ’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Saturday Morning Ethics, 5/30/2020: Burn, Baby, Burn Nostalgia”:

In 1969, which is outside living memory for a lot of folks now, the long-standing civil rights issues in Derry, Northern Ireland, came to a head in a series of demonstrations by nationalist Catholics and unionist Protestants, which resulted in violence by both sides against both sides, due to the anger and hate they possessed. The RUC, not yet the highly trained force they would become, initially did not handle it too well. The action quickly took on the character of an outbreak of civil war, with the throwing of Molotov cocktails, the use of CS gas, and ultimately firearm discharge (this was before police in Northern Ireland were armed as a matter of course). In two days it looked like the city would be torn apart, and the rioting only stopped when the Prince of Wales’ Own Regiment of Yorkshire landed and forced the sides apart. Miraculously no lives were lost, although about 350 police officers and about a thousand riot participants were injured. That’s before we even talk about fires and property damage.

Little did everyone involved know this was the beginning of the 37 year conflict that would be known as the Troubles and see the British Army’s longest deployment in the form of Operation Banner. The first few years were particularly ugly with ongoing low-level conflict and no-go areas for the authorities. Finally after 1972’s Bloody Sunday (which everyone talks about) and Bloody Friday (22 IRA bombings in less than an hour and a half) which no one talks about, the British Army launched Operation Motorman to reclaim the no-go areas. The IRA was not equipped for open warfare like that, and quickly melted into the countryside, there to reorganize into the terrorism cells that would have a hard time doing anything too big or coordinated, but also be hard to root out and destroy, getting money, arms, and whatever else needed from those sympathetic to the cause or just looking to weaken an American ally.

The rest is history, and it has been relegated to the history books since 1998, when the IRA realized that, although a determined minority can often get their way, this wasn’t one of those times. It wasn’t 1922 anymore, the Cold War was over, outside aid was drying up, and the idea of one insurgency defeating the UK and establishing a united Ireland was a pipe dream. Continue reading →

Sympathy For The Stupid

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I have a problem of long-standing: I just can’t muster a lot of empathy for people who hurt themselves doing incredibly stupid things. I just can’t. Stupidity causes so much death and destruction in the world, and the more competent among us spend so much precious time and treasure trying to mitigate the damage wreaked on society by idiots.

Even when the idiots involved are children, I have difficultly time feeling too sorry for their self-inflicted misfortunes if the cause was sufficiently dunder-headed…like in this case.

In Bolivia, three Marvel Comics-loving brothers, ages 12, 10 and 8, forced a black widow spider to bite them, theorizing that the bites would turn each of them into Spiderman. First of all, if you are going to try something like this, know your comics. Peter Parker wasn’t bitten by a Black Widow—where did they get that idea? —which has venom 15 times stronger than a rattlesnake’s bite. Black widows are one of the most feared spiders in the world, and the most venomous in North America. Now, Spiderman got his Spidey powers after being bitten by an ordinary spider that was radioactive. If the brothers were such fans of the Webslinger, they should have known that. If you aren’t sure what kind of spider confers super-powers, you don’t take a flyer on the deadliest spider around as your first candidate.

Yeah yeah yeah they are just kids. So were the idiots who jumped off of roofs using a blankets as capes when The Superman TV show was hot. I didn’t have any sympathy for them, either.

Finding the  brothers crying in pain, their mother rushed them to a nearby health center, which transferred them to a nearby hospital suffering from fevers, tremors and muscle pains. They were treated and discharged  almost a week after they were bitten. They were lucky. They may not be so lucky next time.

 

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 5/14/2020: Only One Pandemic Note Out Of Five!

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Good morning!

I am disgusted with this brain-dead talking point: perhaps my most Trump Deranged Facebook friend posted a rant–at least he wrote his own this time rather than searching the web for the latest from established “resistance” pundits (Dana Milbank, Paul Krugman, Joe Scarborough, about a hundred others)—making the “point” that President Trump wasn’t “elected to do heart surgery,” so the argument that Dr. Fauci’s opinions on the Wuhan virus shouldn’t dictate policy because “he wasn’t elected” were foolish. How did people like my friend get this way? He is obviously amazingly receptive to Democrat-crafted narratives, and probably hypnosis as well, so I guess I should be glad he doesn’t think he’s a chicken.

We elect leaders to consider and weigh many opinions of advisers, experts and specialists in narrow fields to balance those among other considerations in deciding what is in the best long and short term interests of the nation. That’s why, among other reasons, the we have a civilian in charge of the armed services. This increasingly popular (and tiresome) claim from the Left that if the recommendations of scientist aren’t followed, it is proof of ignorance and recklessness is logically, historically and politically unsupportable. If it’s sincere rather than a partisan tactic, it is ignorant  as well.

Scientists aren’t accountable to the public for their opinions; if they are wrong, they just come up with new theories and conclusions.  Scientists and health care specialists also, as we have said here many times, operate within the tunnel vision and priorities of their own specialties. All Dr. Fauci focuses on is the likely (as they appear at any given point) health consequences of national policy. Economic, security, political consequences are not his concern, nor should they be. Arguing that his position on the best national policy must be accepted by the President is irresponsible as well as incompetent, and this is true without even considering the fact that Fauci and the “experts” have been repeatedly wrong about the pandemic already, as Senator Paul pointed out this week.

1.How sports teaches character. I am going to have to take two hours out of my day because the MLB channel, improvising like crazy to come up with programming without any baseball games to cover, is replaying the 1975 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds, best known for Game 6, when Carlton Fisk hit a walk-off home run in the 12th inning of arguably the most exciting World Series game ever played. I was at Game Six and two more in that seven game series (thanks to the generosity of my late law school friends and classmates Mitch and Myron Dale, whose father was then president of the Reds), but it was one I didn’t see in person, Game 4, that was the Ethics Game.

Red Sox pitcher Luis Tiant, with his team facing a daunting three games-to-one deficit if it lost, pitched a nerve-wracking, complete game 5-4 victory, protecting a one-run lead for most of it despite lacking his best stuff against the toughest line-up in baseball. Nearly every inning, the Reds had men on base and threatened to take the lead; over and over again Sox manager Darrell Johnson trudged out to the mound to replace Tiant, only to have his ace shake his head, insist that he would get the job done, and demand that his boss return to the dugout. TV closeups of the Cuban’s grim and sweat-covered face showed pure determination as he took the fate of the team on his own back fearlessly and without hesitation. Tiant, an old man in baseball years, threw over 180 pitches that night in the era before they counted pitches; today, starters are seldom allowed to throw more than 100. Even more than the famous Curt Schilling “bloody sock” game in 2004, that athletic performance epitomizes for me the ethical virtues of professionalism, honor, perseverance, accountability, fortitude, courage and sacrifice. I have pictured Luis Tiant’s face  many times since when I have been under pressure to succeed, or facing a challenge while not feeling at my best. Continue reading →

Ethics Warm-Up, 5/13/2020….Oh, So WHAT If It’s Morning Or Not? Who CARES? Who Cares About ANY Of It?

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

1. I miss Ken. Ken White used to troll people who would ask him to post their sponsored content on Popehat. Now that he’s writing for The Atlantic, which morphed into a “resistance” organ and which I refuse to read on principle unless a particular screed is brought to my attention, I no longer get to chuckle at his nonsense mockery post about ponies and the rest. Now I’m getting this junk too. Faith Cormier writes,

I was visiting your website, ethicsalarms.com, and it had me wondering: do you accept outside submissions? If so, we’d love to create an original piece for you!Because it would include a totally natural reference to one of our clients, we’re prepared to pay you $100 for your time and effort. (Payments made through PayPal.) Shall we send you a draft, Jack? Alternatively, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Yeah, I have a question, Faith. How could you read this blog, with the title “Ethics Alarms,” and make a proposal like that? “Totally natural reference” means a promotion, and that this would be deceptive marketing.  My integrity may have a price some day, but if it does, it will be a hell of a lot higher than a hundred bucks.

2. Ethics movie spoiler.  “Standoff,” is a 2016 film that critics mostly slammed because critics don’t understand ethics movies. A hit man (Lawrence Fishburne) who is chasing a 12-year-old girl who took a photo of him while he was executing people tracks her down to a run-down house where a depressed and alcoholic veteran (Thomas Jane) is living. The veteran, who has some facility with firearms (and who lost his own young son, sending him into his tailspin) decides to protect her, though the hit man demands that he turn her over to be shot. The veteran faces several ethics conflicts after making the altruistic decision to risk his own life to try to save a child who showed up on his doorstep by random chance. The hit man captures a police officer and tortures him to force the girl’s surrender. He then threatens to kill the officer, and does, as the veteran rejects the proffered exchange. Finally, the hit man captures the veteran’s ex-wife, and says he will kill her if he doesn’t get the little girl. (“How do I know I can trust you?” the vteran asks as they are negotiating. “You can’t!” the hit man replies.)

Now that’s an ethics conflict! Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 5/6/2020: Question, Questions…

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Good morning?

1. Is this is a Catch 22 or what? In order to start using Adobe Acrobat in the Creative Cloud “suite,” you must agree to Adobe’ s new Terms of Use. However, a user can’t  read the Terms of Use until after he or she agrees to the Terms of Use.  Among the provisions in those terms is this…

14.1 Process. If you have any concern or dispute, you agree to first try to resolve the dispute informally by contacting us. If a dispute is not resolved within 30 days of receipt by us, any resulting legal actions must be resolved through final and binding arbitration, including any question of whether arbitration is required, except that you may assert claims in small claims court if your claims qualify. Claims related to the Terms, Services, or Software are permanently barred if not brought within one year of the event resulting in the claim.

That’s right: you have to agree not to sue  them.

Rob  Beschizza posted a video online showing him futilely  clicking the “Terms of Use” link only to be prevented from reading them because he hadn’t agreed to the Terms of Use.  As he points out, almost nobody—yes, not even lawyers—reads these fine print, intentionally verbose and obscure conditions before they agree to  terms of use, but that’s the users’  fault. Being forced to agree to terms before it is possible to read them is another kettle of fish. That’s con-man stuff. That makes it an invalid contract.

Of course, a company that tries this stunt assumes that when it produces a lawyer-signed statement reminding  dissatisfied customers of the terms they signed, that will be sufficient to discourage any further action.

2. In a mass shooting any excuse for this? Watch this video of an arrest by Canadian police in Lethbridge, Alberta:

A  young woman  dressed as an Empire Storm Trooper and carrying a plastic “blaster” on May the Fourth (…”be with you!”) to promote her employer’s cafe was surrounded by four officers, guns drawn, then tackled—bloodying her nose—cuffed and arrested. Lethbridge Police Inspector Jason Walper said  his department received  two 911 calls regarding  someone brandishing a weapon.

Apparently there really are people, at least in Canada, who have never seen “Star Wars.” But what are the odds that none of the four police were aware that this was a costume? Surely the rational approach to the silly situation would be to ask the woman to  take off her helmet and explain what she was doing before they attacked her. If the girl had been black, and this had occurred in the U.S., the NAACP would be demanding an investigation.

Canadians are trying to mitigate the stupidity here by noting that everyone is traumatized by the nation’s  mass shooting last month that left 22 dead. And, I suppose, a Storm Trooper outfit could have been a diabolical hit man’s clever disguise. I suppose.

Only 22? Heck, in the U.S., that’s chicken feed! Continue reading →

Sunday Evening Ethics Nightcap: 5/3/2020: It Isn’t What It Is

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Good NIGHT!

Yoo’s Rationalization, or “It isn’t what it is” seems to have become popular in recent weeks, and this collection reflects that hellish development.

1. Some things just aren’t true because you want them to be. In Great Britain, Freddy McConnell gave birth after transitioning (but obviously not completely, correct?), so he is fighting in the courts to be officially listed as his child’s father rather than his mother. His argument has been repeatedly rejected, most recently when he unsuccessfully appealed the court decision that he could be registered only as his son’s mother. He now wants to take his case to Britain’s Supreme Court.

What is it about people who think that the law can and should declare up to be down (because they prefer down) and why do they feel it is reasonable and ethical to take up time and resources to try to force the government  to endorse an eccentric  interpretation of reality? This reminds me of the argument that Bruce Jenner’s victories in the Olympics should be recorded as wins by his future female alter-ego. But women can’t compete in those events, can they? Similarly, the human being that gives birth to another human being is that individual’s mother, by definition. Like Abe Lincoln’s quip about how a dog doesn’t have five legs just because you call its tail a leg, McConnell can call himself anything he likes, and have his child call him what he likes. But he’s still kid’s mother.

Own it, dude, and stop wasting everyone’s time.

2.  Wait, what? The New York Times has a story headlined, “‘Murder Hornets’ in the U.S.: The Rush to Stop the Asian Giant Hornet/Sightings of the Asian giant hornet have prompted fears that the vicious insect could establish itself in the United States and devastate bee populations.”

Explain, please, why it’s somehow racist to call the virus that came from the Wuhan Province in China “the Wuhan virus,” or the Chinese virus, but the same paper that has championed the cheap Trump-bashing  tactic of condemning the naming of a pandemic after its place of origin refers to a “vicious insect” from Asia the “Asian Giant Hornet’?

Then there is this head-exploder: In China, Wuhan has passed Beijing as the top domestic destination for Chinese tourists. It ranked only eighth before the pandemic.

The hashtag “武汉成为疫情后网民最想去旅游的城市,” roughly translated as “Wuhan is the top city netizens want to visit after the epidemic” has become viral on Chinese social media. Why? Apparently it’s because something momentous happened there. History!

So to sum up: Chinese people regard Wuhan as the origin of the pandemic, and that makes it more attractive to them as a tourist destination, but if Americans identify the same area with the pandemic here, they are racist. Continue reading →

Monday Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 4/27/2020: It’s Come To This…

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

…I have to rely on cute Jack Russell Terrier videos to keep me from heading to the bridge…

1.  No, guys, it’s not unethical to retract a bad law. SCOTUS Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr, Thomas and Gorsuch were annoyed that the Supreme Court refused to consider the Constitutionality of a New York anti-gun law after the state not only repealed the law, but passed a law preventing a similar law from being passed again. The Supreme Court today dismissed a major gun rights case that Second Amendment activists had hoped would clarify the right to bear arms. The decision dismissing the case was unsigned, but the dissent was signed, so we also know who made up the majority.   “By incorrectly dismissing this case as moot, the court permits our docket to be manipulated in a way that should not be countenanced,” Alito et al. hurrumphed. The law’s removal rendered the case moot and denied the Court an opportunity to explore whether there is a right to carry a gun outside the home.

I’d say that when the prospect of being slammed by the Court makes a state back down from an overreaching law, that’s a win. Stop complaining. Continue reading →